Happy Birthday to me!

We'll today is my birthday. Another day older than yesterday. No bother, my life is getting better each year so I'm not in turmoil that I'm no longer a 'youngster' lol.

I've had a truly wonderful birthday today. The last couple of years I've felt that I've not really been made a fuss of by the boys and husband but this year was perfect. They had gotten me lovely cards, a box of my favourite chocolates and an A4 Finsbury Filofax in Raspberry that I had asked for. I want to use this to start brainstorming homeschool ideas and also for meal planning and household bits. They also sung Happy Birthday on repeat!

My favourite birthday gift by far was the card that I received from Nathan and Ethan. For the last few weeks we've had a homeschool schedule in place just to start covering some reading, writing and maths. It's taken a few tweaks and adjustments but we've found a great rhythm now and I just need to add in some topic work and fun science type experiments and we'll be in a great groove. Here is what made me so happy.

I was so impressed that Nathan had written his own name unassisted and so we'll it brought a tear yo my eye :-)

We finished the day off with a lovely tea party. 

I've had the best birthday in years and feel very loved and lucky!

I hope you're Valentines day has been equally as nice!

Lisa x

A Schedule is formed.

I decided that over the Christmas break I wanted to get a rough schedule in place so that we started covering a bit of the basics. Reading, writing and math. As it happened what with family being over, spending time generally being with the boys and Kenny time ran away with me (quell surprise) and it didn't get looked at.

I set aside Saturday morning to have a look through it and after 3 hours I had a rough schedule in place. Not a long period of time, just 15 minutes for each. I'm not sure how it's going to go and to be fair I tried to implement it after having 3 hours sleep which was crazy-I certainly didn't have the enthusiasm required and it rubbed off onto Nathan. I also had a  few activities in place for Ethan but mainly a couple of Montessori activities.

I would class this morning as an epic fail and I have completely doubted having a schedule at all. After all one of the reasons we're homeschooling is to make the boys learning fun and not have them sitting doing worksheets-exactly what I had Nathan doing this morning although to be fair, I only wanted him to do a couple of pages but he seemed to enjoy it and did 6.

I'm also at a loss on how to introduce ideas to them to spark an interest so that we can go down an 'interest lead' route? It'll come to me but any ideas/suggestions are greatly received!

Thanks :-) x

Happy New Year!

Why hello there lovely people!

We had a wonderful christmas and a very quiet New Years eve. In fact I was asleep by 9:30 last night and I woke up feeling amazing. In years gone by we would of still been partying until the morning and then sleeping our way through New Years day. I don't miss those times one bit. Yes we had fun but everything's different now, we're different. And I'm so much happier for it :-)

I always struggle at christmas. Since we've had the boys there seems to be a competitiveness between mine and Kenny's mums. I'm not sure what it is but they can't just be normal and enjoy being together. It makes family gatherings hard work and tedious. Don't get me wrong they don't not get on, there's just always an atmosphere. It's never easy. Kenny is far more laid back than I am but it really riles me which is why we don't have that many family things anymore. Not that I miss them, it's always me that has to host them anyway. Hey ho nothing will change so there's no point dwelling on it.

Looking forward into 2014, what are my hopes and plans? That's easy. I'm going to be more positive and rid myself of any negative outside influences. My mood is easily influenced so I'm going to make sure that it's only in a positive way! We'll start to be a bit more focused with our time with the boys and our homeschooling will kick up a notch this year and become more purposeful.

Goals for Nathan this year are for him to learn to read and write. This is just the academic part. The most important thing is that he has fun and enjoys learning and stays hungry for it. This will take a lot of work on my part as if I am tired or feeling under the weather I don't have the patience I need to have but I'm a work in progress on that! We're going to follow his lead on other aspects of learning for example we are going to kick off the new year with learning about reptiles as he is very interested in this at the moment. There will be structured reading, writing and maths daily but only short bursts and just to get a small routine in place.

With Ethan I'm going to do a little bit of Letter of the week and some Montessori activities, number recognition but nothing major.

I have just taken delivery of the amazing Spielgaben set which I will post about soon and will include some pictures of it being used. We will also be using more Montessori materials intentionally.

The playroom is going to have a big overhaul and makeover so I will be sure to take pictures of the before and after. This will be a work in progress though. I'm also going to include more arts and crafts, messy play, sensory tubs and we will cook at least once a week.

My personal goals are to stop procrastinating and get all of the above in place, I will also be blogging every day. Yep every single day. Even if it's not much. The idea of this blog was to keep a log of what we had been doing together and this hasn't happened at all, but it will do me good to look back over the year and see what we have achieved, places we have visited and hopefully happy pictures of our family. I'll also be using my camera more. Oh and having another baby of course! I've also joined the Instagram (I'm @lisarye) band wagon and will be crocheting a square a day so that at the end of the year I'll have a beautiful new blanket. I will be doing more crochet generally through the year as it's something I love doing. I need more colour in my life too and need to have a major declutter which will be happening over the coming weeks.

Sounds like I have an awful lot to be getting on with!

Happy New Year to you all and thanks for reading my rambles!

Lisa xx

Learning to read.....

It never fails to amaze me just how absorbent children really are. I mentioned in a previous post that Nathan is really interested in language and I wanted to jump on it, which I have. I recently posted on a Home Ed forum for some advice on fun reading programmes to try him with and the one that came up trumps was Reading Eggs, somebody kindly gave me a code for a months free trial and I set it all up last night.

Well what can I say! It's pretty impressive not just in the interactive sense but also with how it captured Nathans attention. He's going through a tired spell at the moment and I'm going to cut out and daytime nap as he's just waking up too early for his little body. However, given that he is tired, he's just sat and done 15 minutes of it and managed to learn how to navigate my touch pad on my lap top as well as do the activities. What I also like about the program is that I can also buy accompanying books that will be good at reinforcing what he will learn. I know it's early days but I really think he'll enjoy it and if he doesn't well we can try something else.

I've also been told about some of the Leap Frog learn to read items and I'm going to invest in a couple of those too after all Christmas is coming up!

I've started to go to a couple of Home Ed groups which has been good although I think we won't need them too much at the moment as we're so busy with other things, but I do think they will definitely have their place and it's good to know they are there and that the support is so good!

If any of you have any other tips on teaching little ones to read in a fun way I'd be grateful to hear from you, in the meantime I'm going to plan lots of christmas crafts :-)

New friends....

Here we are again, so much time has passed. What can I say, we've been busy! I'm never sure really where the time is going. I find it terrifying sometimes. It's hard to believe that the boys are only 3 and 1.

Nathan is just amazing us with his insatiable appetite for words and language. He now knows all his phonetic alphabet sounds and every day I'm asked what letters words begin with. I'm making the final touches to a moveable alphabet and will show pictures soon. In the meantime I'm going to start going over some sight words with him to see where he is. Although I've read this should wait until they're 5 I think he's in such a great place with language that I don't want him to get bored. Got to keep him active, clever thing :-)

Ethan has started to walk finally but there is no stopping him now, it's as if he decided to wait until he could do it well. His language is also coming along. He repeats most words after you and his pronunciation isn't too bad. We're starting to learn colours which is going well so far.

We've met some amazing new friends who are also home schooling. Their little girl Jess is 2.5 years and her and Nathan have the sweetest friendship blossoming. It's wonderful as Lisa-her mum has so many of the same educational thoughts as me that being in their company is just so easy. She is probably the calmest person I know and I always feel so much more relaxed when I've seen her.

I'll leave you with a few images of what we've been up to.

Checking out the Penguins

A favourite day out. Drusillas Zoo

Dot dot fun

After bath cuddles

Space sensory tub

Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings and as ever take care.

Lisa xx

Starting slowly.

In a bid to start to add a bit of "learning with purpose" I've been looking at ways that I can start to introduce a few things. This that will excite Nathan into the world around us in a geographical sense. Just to make him aware that there are indeed other countries. I've been struggling with this as it's really not my strong point. Cue Culture Swaps. I've actually signed up to two. One here at Chasing Cheerios and the other here at The Worldwide Culture Swap. I'm very excited about these although I am feeling the pressure as some that I have seen are amazing!

I've also been looking at this fantastic website which has some great resources in it for toddlers up to older children. I've been losing a lot of time reading and printing from this and future posts will follow as I start to introduce the lapbooks and preschool packs!

Here are a couple of pictures of me introducing a sensory idea to Nathan whilst we were away. I was limited by what we had to hand but he was occupied with this for several large chunks of time.

These are a small take on the sensory bins, but like I say it was just making the best of what I had to hand. A "proper" one will be made next week. I'm thinking Ocean theme as Nathan is so into this at the moment.

I also made the decision to not go ahead with the distance learning course. I had a long chat with Kenny and at the moment it will put too much pressure on me. I'm so excited at the moment about or coming weeks and can't wait to share how we get on. I'll also be posting pictures of the finished loft conversion soon as it's in it's last week now!

Thanks for stopping by!

Lisa x

Observation.

I've been noticing recently that Nathan needs a lot more stimulation than to just play with toys now. I'm not talking mathematical equations, he just needs more. I know people say that kids are like sponges but it truly amazes me just how he picks things up.

A week ago I started to do some basic number recognition with him. He has a book called Billy The Bear which is one of his favourites at the moment. It has magnetic animals and also the numbers 1-10 to put on each page. All I started to do was show him the numbers and tell him what they were. I'd then ask him for the number and he'd pass it to me to be placed on the page. There were a few he wasn't sure of and I didn't push him with them at all but when my bargain Lacing Numbers turned up (that I got on eBay for £3) I thought I'd give him a go with them and he knew all but number 9. The only reason he struggled with that is because it's exactly the same as the number 6. I couldn't believe how well he'd done after just 3 days. He was also away lacing the tiny fiddly holes after a couple of attempts! I've since spoken to  his Montessori Pre-school Directress and she had a look at what he's been learning there and they haven't even started on numbers yet so everything he's learnt is from me!

Since then we've started playing a game with his big alphabet puzzle where I say the phonetic sound and he passes me the piece of the puzzle. He really enjoys this and it's a great way for him to learn the sounds rather than the letter. Any learning that we're doing I'm trying to find ways to make fun as he seems to lap it up a lot easier-plus he's not even 3 yet!

Ethan bless him is teething heavily at the moment and is extremely grumpy, he's teething for longer before cutting the tooth as well so this week on recommendation I introduced the teething granules and I also brought a baltic amber necklace which arrived yesterday. Hopefully these things help as it's hard to see my normally happy baby so sad. Watch this space.

Generally we've had a great week. Today sees the scaffolding go up for the start of our extension which will start on the 25th so this coming week I'll be deciding what I need to take and then pack for my 2 weeks at the Haven park in Hastings!

How's your week been so far? What fun tips do you have to stimulate your little ones and keep them interested?

Until next time.

Lisa x

Lesson learnt....

Since making the decision to home school the boys I've been looking at our local "home ed" groups to see what activities there are and what local meet ups etc are available. Although I won't go over the top trying to incorporate "social time" into our day, trips out with other children and families will be fun for everyone.

I was invited along to one on the 1st June. It was just a meet up at a park local to me. I decided to take Nathan along and leave Ethan at home so off we went. I was full of apprehension and excitement at meeting people that were already well in the thrust of home schooling their children and Nathan, well he was really excited to be going to the park! We went to the main park first and it was heaving! There were tonnes of families there, all different age groups and I was completely at a loss as to who were just at the park or who was there for the meet up. I decided to have a walk round as there were also some horses, a paddling pool and a soft play area to explore. Nathan is besotted with animals and spent an awful long time just talking to them.

We then got close to the paddling pool where somebody had forgotten to close the gate to it. Nathan did no more than turn to look at me and make a dash to the water. Yep he went in full clothed, shoes and all! I hadn't taken a change of clothes as I knew I wouldn't be staying that long and it wasn't a sunny day so I didn't think the paddling pool would be involved in our trip! I decided it was best to just let him play in there as otherwise it was a trip back home and he was having so much fun I didn't want to spoil it.

I then found out the people I was due to meet were in the soft play section. Ooops. After about half an hour Nathan was getting cold so I had to entice him back to the car where luckily I had a spare pair of pants and then I had to get a very sad little boy back home to warm up.

I didn't get to meet the people I was supposed to meet but I did learn a valuable lesson that I should of remembered when I was a cub scout (yes really I was!) Always be prepared!

What a lovely morning. I'm sitting here at this crazy early hour (05:30) not because my children have woken me but because the birds have decided to sing. I'm not complaining, I love that the weather has finally turned. The boys are loving being in the garden endlessly playing and having fun. It makes me wonder what we did in the winter months.

As you can imagine I've been reading, and reading and reading some more. I'm finding out so much information and there are so many amazing websites around. If you're stuck for things to do with your little ones I found this website on Tuesday and you select your childs age and they list activities accordingly, there are hundreds of things there to do and the bonus is that it's free. It really does make it easier to be able to select the age too.

I've tried Treasure Baskets with Ethan this week. I'm not sure I've introduced them at the right point of the day as there always seems to be something going on to distract him so he doesn't get the proper time. I'm going to schedule this a bit better, maybe I'll read to Nathan whilst he's rifling through. I'm also going to add more things to it so there's plenty of texture, size and weight for him to explore.

Our eldest Nathan actually goes to a Montessori Pre School, he has done since October when we took him to show him around and he was completely taken with the environment.  I'll keep him there for a few sessions a week and will also be incorporating the Montessori method in and around our home as I just love how it is completely open to the child. This was the reason that we signed Nathan up, it's just amazing to see how it works. There are some phenomenal Montessori blogs out there and so many that I have yet found the time to read but my favourites so far are Counting Coconuts, Chasing Cheerios and My Montessori Moments. I'm still struggling with what can be introduced at this age but I'm getting there.

I'll leave you with some pictures of our recent trip to the duck pond. Nathan loves going and Ethan looked happier than the last time we went!

The perk of going so early!

A gorgeous sight.

Our gorgeous baby who grows before my eyes!

My highlight. The baby Signets.

Nathan chatting to the ducks

 I hope you have enjoyed my latest ramblings and thank you in advance for reading. All comments are gratefully received :-)

Have a great day.

Lisa x

A Sad Realisation.

I opened the curtains to our baby boys bedroom this morning and was greeted with a beautiful smile and a great big raspberry blown in my face. I felt the most intense wave of love wash through me and just grip my heart. Moments like these I cherish. 

As the weather has finally warmed up I have seasonally changed Ethans wardrobe over now so that he is in the summer clothes. He's 10 months but is getting snug in 12-18 month clothing, he's a big boy and so is his brother. Nathan will be 3 in August. He's in 4-5 yrs clothing. Anyway I digress. What hit me as I bagged up the next lot of clothing to go into the loft was the stark, sad realisation that the boys are growing up so so fast. Too fast. I suppose I'm seeing this more with Ethan as I'm physically bagging clothes up and moving him onto the next lot.

There are days that I plod along through, not necessarily taking my life for granted but maybe not appreciating quite what I have. I don't give myself credit for the job that I'm doing in bringing the boys up. It sinks in when they learn a new skill or when I have a conversation with Nathan just as I did this morning and he started to talk to me about bees. He went on to tell me that bees collect pollen to make us honey but that he shouldn't touch them. Amazing. Well to me it is anyway. I've started to notice the little things. The way that Nathan now interacts with Ethan as he is moving a bit more so is more interesting to his big brother. Nathan now knows if he sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or Old MacDonald had a farm Ethan will dance. It's just so cute.

When I have told people that we will be Home Educating our family, the biggest response is "god I'd hate to be around my kids all day' Well, I'm one of those people that loves to be around them all day. I love seeing them learn new things, new words, new movements. I can't wait to help them become the men they will be come.

Today I discovered this blog here which is just fantastic. It follows one family's journey through their Home Ed experience so for a newbie like me it is very interesting reading. It's also great to see how they have overcome any difficult situations. It'll definitely be added to my regular list of reading material.

Since I've been researching and reading up on all things Home Ed my crafting has taken a bit of a back seat but I seem to of found a better balance now and feel a lot happier. I tend to get all consumed and bogged down with things trying to absorb everything in a day. I've realised I don't need to do that. I have plenty of time. Nathan guides me everyday on his interests and I know Ethan will too. I will use my natural instinct to follow their lead and then be the best mummy I can be.

I appreciate you reading and would love for you to leave me any comments that you may have.

Lisa xx

A New Beginning...

Wow, I've decided to just do it and start a mummy blog! Another one I hear you sigh.....Well that may be the case but this is just for me, just for my family. I'm hoping in years to come we'll be able to look over this and use it for what it is intended. Just a log of our life and events. In the meantime I'm hoping to be able to provide some laughter and happiness to any of you lovely people that decide to take the time to read and comment on my posts.

A bit about myself, well I'm 31 and happily married to my husband Kenny. We live with our two boys in a house we love on the sunny coast of Worthing in West Sussex. We're literally a 5 minute walk from the seafront and live opposite a nice big park. Perfect for burning off all that toddler energy! We're also pretty much decided that we will go against the grain and home school our children.

We started looking into home schooling a little while ago and I've now become all consumed with reading and absorbing everything that I can about it. That's what I'm like, I'll surround myself with as many books and articles as I can and then try to soak it all up. The reason for us going down this route really is of personal choice, our class sizes here are set to be close to 40 children, a teacher will barely have time to spend any one to one time with our boys, they might not like to be forced to learn the same things, at the same rate and at the same time as every other person around them. I'm still reading a lot about it but I'm finding all of the blogs out there really interesting and useful. Any positive advise or links will be greatly received!

In my spare time I love to cook and do all things crafty, I also have a blog for this passion over on Wordpress. www.lisarye.wordpress.com is you fancy checking that out!

I'm not a writer so you will find that these posts will be more ramblings but hey I'm only trying to be The Best Mummy I Can Be......

Thanks for reading and I wish you a fabulous day.